Spider-Man - A Different Choice
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: AU. Ben Parker's death caused Peter to lock up his costume when he was torn between caring for his aunt and what his responsibility was. A year later, he makes his choice after months of grief. Watch out New York, Spider-Man is a thief. Peter/OC.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi, this is my first Spider-Man story. Hopefully it won't be the last I write. I don't own Spider-Man or other Marvel characters, but I do own the plot and one or two characters.**

 **Spider-Man: A Different Choice.**

Aunt May looked so frail, so helpless in the hospital bed. But she looked peaceful, even if she was wired into the machines that registered her heart beats and respiration. Sitting next to her, tired and frightened for his aunt's life, Peter Parker, once the entertainer known as the Amazing Spider-Man, looked on. He didn't dare take his eyes off the peaceful face of his aunt, lest her heart gave out. All around the room were vases of flowers from friends and acquaintances, and cards stood open everywhere. At first Peter had opened them and said to his unconscious and ill aunt that so and so had sent a get well soon card, but now he no longer bothered, now he just opened the cards quietly, noted the names, also noting that said sender hadn't done anything beyond sending a card, and placed it on the table. The job had become so monotonous that he no longer had the mental energy to say anything meaningful to her anymore. He had other concerns as well. Money was getting tight, and bailiffs were sending letters to the house, threatening them with eviction if they didn't pay up. To make matters worse, the tiny and pathetic job he had, though it had brought in much needed income, though May had stubbornly protested at the time when he'd told her he was looking for work, wasn't paying much. In fact Peter wondered why he was even bothering; all the money he earned went into three things; firstly his travel fares, secondly his food and drink to keep himself alive, and lastly his aunt's treatment.

Now more than ever Peter wished Uncle Ben were still alive; Ben had been the glue holding their family together. He had been the strong one, not like little cowardly Peter, so skittish and feeble he couldn't even lift a fist. Guilt over his uncle's death brought back even worse memories into his mind. It had been Peter's stupidity, cockiness and egotism that had allowed that bastard burglar to escape, and it was that same burglar who'd gone out and killed his uncle. With his spider powers he could have stopped the burglar, and Uncle Ben would still be alive. But no. Peter had stupidly let the burglar past, thinking he was too good to stop a simple burglar when it would've been very simple, even the gun the man had carried wouldn't have been a threat. That arrogance had led to his Uncle's death, and now his aunt was teetering on death's door, and the bailiffs were threatening to evict them!

As Peter fell into a more melancholic mood, a nurse came in quietly. The doctors and nurses had become accustomed to Peter's quiet presence over the last few weeks, and their hearts went out to him, even as some of the more arrogant and heartless members of their profession tried to bleed the poor boy of everything he had just to keep his aunt alive.

They saw not a piggy bank with an infinite supply of cash in his bank account, but a boy with a thin and boney face who had just entered higher education, and was forced to dress in clothes that had obviously seen better days. They had no idea but they could guess how stressed he was trying to juggle his time spent here with his aunt, going to college, and dealing with working to put some food into his belly and keeping his aunt alive.

Some had tried to strike up conversations with Peter, but he barely responded, though he did tell them a few things. Beyond that he kept himself to himself. They didn't judge him, though, not like the kids at college. They knew that he was suffering, and they tried to make things easier for him and his aunt, but they could only do so much.

"Peter," the nurse whispered to not disturb him, but when he didn't notice her, she had no choice but to say in a louder voice, "Peter!"

Peter looked up at her face. "Hi," he said. "Let me guess, visiting hours are over."

The nurse nodded. "Yeah, I'm afraid so. How is she? I've only just started my shift so I don't know anything about the patients."

"She's stable for now," Peter replied, "but I've already received bills for her care. It's gone up again, and I don't know how I'm going to pay it. The job I got... it will take years to meet the demand without what I have to spend already on food and electricity. I can't find a better job, all of them have already been taken."

The nurse licked her lips. "Don't you...don't you have any friends or family who can help?"

"No. I don't have any family, or if I did they'd have given support to Aunt May and Uncle Ben when I was growing up, never mind what's happening now," Peter said in a monotone. It was the only way he could keep his temper under control. Ever since his uncle's death, Peter had noticed how volatile his temper was recently, and combined with his spider strength it wasn't an attractive combination. But he had no idea that he was broadcasting how he felt to the nurse, she could see the set of his jaw and the way he clenched and unclenched his hands.

Finally, he looked into the nurse's eyes, and saw the pity in them. But he also saw the compassion. She knew what her bosses were doing was wrong, but there was nothing she could do except provide strength, however small, to Peter. That made him grateful.

"Anyway, I'd better be going," he said to get himself back into the present. It wasn't a good idea to leave him wallowing in the muck that was everyday life. "I've got to get to work. I'll pay the hospital," he threw out his arms before letting them drop, "god knows how. Anyway, keep in touch in case anything happens."

The nurse nodded. "Will do."

* * *

The work Peter did was a part time waiting job. It was the only thing he could do without needing any real qualifications, not like the manager cared. In Luigi's eyes, education was only good for doctors, nurses, lawyers or presidents. You didn't need to add 10 and 10 to be a waiter, you just needed a finely tuned balance. That was all, but he had the habit of treating people working in that role like they were dogs. For Peter, the job had become nothing more than purgatory. The pay was crap, the air conditioning in the restaurant would've suited a nuclear furnace than a place to eat and drink, and the air was so choked with the stench of bad cooking, terrible breath, cigarette and cigar smoke, and BO. But the job was the only thing he had managed to get, and even though the restaurant wasn't far from Queens it was still a journey and a bit.

The restaurant had hired six waiters - Peter among them - and they were about the same age as the scrawny, but spider powered teenager, and out of the six only Peter and a girl called Heather remained. You didn't need a degree in physics or politics to work out why until you looked at the place. Luigi's was a tiny little restaurant, in a neighborhood typical of New York. The whole block was rapidly becoming a demilitarised zone, with dozens of wannabe crime lords rising and falling, everyday of the week. And they frequented Luigi's because Luigi turned a blind eye to drug dealing and other crimes.

Peter wasn't surprised the other four had left, and he was equally unsurprised that only himself and Heather remained. Two of the kids who'd worked alongside Peter were jocks like Flash Thompson, and they'd thought the job would be easy, but one look at those guns and knives that were carelessly flashed around (no Thompson pun intended), and they bailed without a backward glance. Despite feeling contempt like he always had for people like that, Peter couldn't blame them on this occasion, but there were other reasons besides how run down the place was to want to leave and never come back. The pay was crap, and the way Luigi and his brother treated the waiting staff was terrible. Luigi also refused to do anything to help Heather whenever one of the customers touched her, he also refused to give either of them extra hours whenever they'd asked, and both of them had long since stopped bothering.

When Peter finally arrived at the restaurant, Luigi instantly blocked his path.

"Oh no, Parker," the unshaven face, the yellowish teeth and the bald, glimmering head made Peter take a step back. Luigi was better seen from a distance.

"You're outta here, fired!" The Italian-American snapped in what may have been a snarl, but it came across more as a grimace.

"What, why?" Peter asked in disbelief. What had he done that would make Luigi fire him?

The restaurant owner gestured at the clock. Peter looked at the dirty, grimy disc on the wall, and then down at Luigi. "But I'm not even late! My shift should be starting in a minute."

"Not according to my new rules," Luigi said smugly back at him. What new rules? "Ya see, I decided to give you and Heather the chance to prove yourselves; you were so prepared to get more hours working for me that I decided to test you to see if you were capable of arriving here a few minutes early. Guess I was right, you're not."

Peter glared at the man as his temper rose; he tried his best all the time to limit how often he used his spider powers, but he did practice them to keep himself from lashing out and making people suspicious of piece of wall sticking to his fingers, and he knew that despite his skinny appearance he was strong enough to smash this dump ten times over, but it took a lot of self control not to put this good for nothing little bastard in hospital. "And just when did you come up with this?" he asked.

"This morning."

"When were you going to tell me and Heather? In fact, where is she?" Peter asked in quick succession, but then Luigi turned his grimacing yellow leer over Peter's shoulder, and he turned around and saw the brunette. Heather was shorter than Peter, but only about the head. Another boy would have compared her to a girl like Sally Avril or Liz Allen, and they would have deemed her plain, but to Peter she was much prettier. Heather was a nice girl inside and out, she wasn't as vapid and conceited like the girls he'd known in his life. But right now she was anything but happy. She looked as angry as Peter did, and more than a little hurt she was losing her job, then she glanced at Peter with the same expression and he realised she felt sorry for him as well. Then she turned her face back to Luigi, and her eyes narrowed again.

"Yeah, Luigi, when were you going to tell Peter and I about this?" Heather folded her arms and glared at the manager. But Peter already knew the answer.

"You never were, where you?" Peter shook his head at the unfairness of it. "You little bastard-" He took a step closer, but Luigi stepped back, eyes wide in surprise that one of his meekest former employees would dare move towards him threateningly, but some of the patrons saw the threat and stood as one. Peter barely paid them any notice, even as his spider sense started tingling with the danger.

"Peter..." Heather's scared voice brought him back and he realised that by stepping closer to Luigi some of his pals had taken out their guns threateningly, and he saw that quite a few of them weren't even aiming properly, some of the barrels were turned in Heather's general direction. Luigi allowed weapons to be brought to the restaurant, but he never allowed them to be fired. The cops would come down on them, and if anyone was injured, then there would be arrests, but Peter wasn't worried about that. He could dodge the bullets, Heather couldn't, and that was the catalyst to calm himself down. Finally, he decided there was nothing he could do; sure, he could let loose the pent up rage he was holding back from this example of unfairness, and smash everyone to a pulp, but he had played the careless card once before and Uncle Ben had paid for it, he didn't want Heather to get hurt because she was with him.

"I hope you can juggle being a manager, chef and host all into one, Luigi," Peter whispered darkly, "it gets busy in here really quickly." He didn't even have much satisfaction when the little man paled suddenly as he realised what he'd done, but it was too late. Peter and Heather had already left.

* * *

"How's your aunt?" Heather asked as they got on the bus. She didn't say a word about what had happened at the restaurant; true, she had been scared stiff of what Peter had almost done, but she was calmer now. She was holding her curiosity at bay for another time, preferably when Peter and she weren't stressed out.

Peter had been surprised by how different Heather was with the other girls he'd known in his life; she wasn't as self obsessed and vapidly stupid as Liz Allen, and compared to them Heather may have been plainer, but she was more beautiful underneath than they were to the outside world. Peter found Heather a refreshing change; most of the girls he knew wouldn't want to be caught anywhere near him, but she didn't care. In fact, she treated him like a human being.

"She's stable, for now, but I've got bills from the hospital."

"And being fired by Luigi is probably the worst thing that can happen right now, right?" Heather asked rhetorically. She knew how tight Peter was with cash, she was as well. Like Peter, Heather had to care for a relative, in her case her mother. Her father had run off, taking the family income with him, so she and her mother had needed to work. But her mother, like Aunt May, got ill easily.

"On top of having to attend college, eat and drink, have electricity and water, yes," Peter replied. "How's your mum?"

He was worried about his friend. She was a trying to juggle her life as a carer, a school girl and now formerly a waitress at a dingy restaurant. It hadn't been as bad before her mother tripped and had an accident. Losing her job was not something she needed herself. Heather sighed and looked straight ahead. "She's not as bad as your aunt, but she's still recovering from her fall. I just wish I could get someone in to care for her, but I can't. It's too expensive. Why don't you drop out of college, Pete, look for work and then reapply?"

"I wish it was as straightforward, Heather, believe me, but whenever Aunt May was awake before her health took a nosedive she made me promise to stay on as a college student," Peter looked at her imploringly, but Heather understood. She understood Peter better than most people could, because like Peter she was bullied and misunderstood at school. Heather was a year below Peter in education, but where he flourished in computers and science, she flourished in art.

Like Peter, Heather had lost a parental figure and the other was so frail it was almost impossible to not worry about them making a wrong move that could see them put into a hospital bed. Granted, Heather hadn't lost her father in the same brutal manner Peter had lost Uncle Ben, but she understood how stressful it was.

"I'm gonna try and look for something else tomorrow," Peter broke through Heather's thoughts, and brought her back to the problem at hand. "I might bunk college tomorrow, focus on that. Want to join me?"

"I wish I could," Heather replied sourly, "but I can't. I've got an important test tomorrow, and I can't flunk it."

Peter nodded in understanding. "I'll meet you after school if that's okay," she added.

"Perfect. I'll see you then."

Heather got off a few stops before Peter, and from the window their eyes met as the bus drove away. Out of all the girls he'd known in his life, Peter had never met one he could safely say he enjoyed knowing. Heather was nicer than many of the girls he'd attended school with, and she was proof positive that just because someone may have been nice to look at (Mary Jane Watson), she was proof Peter was not alone.

When the bus finally arrived at Peter's stop, he pulled his coat up to his neck and tried to hold down a shiver. It was so cold, but he knew it would be just as cold inside the house. Peter wasn't surprised to find a small pile on the doormat, and as he picked them up he sagged in despair. Gas, electricity, water... it never ended, and look, there were more notifications from the hospital. Money, money, money, that's all they wanted.

The good news was he had pawned one or two of his childhood toys over the last few months to add to his pay cheque, gained a bit of extra cash, but now he was fired by Luigi he knew he couldn't keep up with the demand forever. There was little in the house that he could pawn, and besides, he had pawned off enough without Aunt May losing it when she got better.

Dinner that night was a simple microwave dinner; Peter couldn't afford the amount of money needed to run the oven to make a proper meal, and he ate it in his bedroom. When he was finished eating and washed the cheap meal down with a swig of water, Peter sighed as he looked around his bedroom. There were very few of the things in here he could easily sell, and as much as it had pained him there had been little alternative than to sell the stuff Uncle Ben and Aunt May had bought for him over the years. There was no point holding on to something if it could let him and Aunt May live comfortably - not luxuriously, but comfortably - for another day.

And Aunt May needed all the help she could get. Peter had promised not to lose his Aunt May the same way as he lost Uncle Ben, but he found this was more testing. He walked around the room, and in the dim light he tried to find something that he could take to the pawn shop, and as though by fate or destiny, found himself outside his wardrobe. As if controlled by some mystical force, he opened the door and looked down at the box kept in a shadowy corner.

Opening it he found himself looking at the reflective white/silver lenses of his Spider-Man costume. It was hard to believe how strong his emotions were at the sight of the costume - anger, self loathing, guilt, but most prominent was hope. Peter hadn't worn the costume in a year, after trying and failing to work out what purpose he could and should put his spider powers, he had decided to give himself time to try to lead a normal life whilst deciding slowly what to do with his new powers. He'd put the costume in a box and kept it in a darkened part of his wardrobe. But now he fingered the stretchy fabric, tracing the silk screened web pattern, remembering the last time he had worn it as an entertainer...before Jameson wrote those deflamatory articles calling him a masked menace. The public and the entertainment industry had dropped him like a rock in the river.

Peter had hoped that if he could consistently entertain people with his powers he could make enough money to support Aunt May, giving her a simple lie about how he'd made the money. But unfortunately Jameson had killed that idea stone dead, and Peter had floundered trying to think of a means to make some good income. There had been three choices, and now one was still open to him, like it always had been. But he had tried and hoped that this year would give him the chance to work out what he could do in a normal setting, and that meant keeping his powers hidden.

But now he had no choice.

He had no interest in becoming a crime fighter; there was no money in it, and besides with Jameson calling him a masked menace once, there was no telling what the editor would call him if he donned this costume again to fight crime after a year's absence. And then there was what he'd seen last year that had permanently put him off superhero work.

Peter shook himself out of those thoughts as he tried to think. Then it came to him. It had occurred to him the year before, but now it looked far more attractive.

He could become a thief. Peter shook his head, he'd touched on this before, last year, when he'd tried to make up his mind about what kind of things he could do with his powers after Uncle Ben had been shot. He'd pushed the idea of becoming a thief out of his mind, he had no desire to upset or break Aunt May's heart, and with her health the way it was anything could happen.

But, try as Peter might, he could see no way out of this. He needed to be realistic; he couldn't be a superhero, he needed cash right now, and the entertainment business was not possible anymore. Crime was the only chance he had left, and then his mind touched upon what his Uncle had said.

"With great power, comes great responsibility."

Peter had tried to push the existence of his powers out of his mind for the past year, and yet he hadn't succeeded. He had wanted the year to give himself the chance to work out what he could do about his problems.

"With great power, comes great responsibility."

Peter cursed as his uncle's words echoed round in his head again like a stuck record. Out loud he said, "Responsibility to whom? To a public who'll crucify me 'cause I wear a costume and can run up and down on webs? Or is my responsibility closer to my family, to Aunt May who took care of me because my mother wasn't around to care for me? She's lying in a hospital bed, and a few cheap heroics aren't going to save her, are they Uncle Ben? Besides, I can think of someone else who could benefit from any crimes I commit."

Heather had entered Peter's mind again. Like Peter, none of her mother's friends had lifted so much as a finger to help her when things were getting out of control, and none of her family had come forwards to ease the weight off her shoulders. But would she accept pity and charity from him?

"What responsibility?" Peter asked aloud. "Look at Heather; her father fucked off to god knows where, and with him gone the family income suffered as well. He had a responsibility, and he blew it. Why shouldn't I use my powers to help Aunt May and Heather and her mother?"

At that point Peter had made an epiphany; instead of looking to people he didn't know, he would focus his mind and attention on those nearest to him. With that thought in mind he took the costume and the webshooters to the bed, went to the lamp and turned it off. He slipped off his trousers, shoes and socks and put on the tights and boots before putting on the top and the webshooters. He fired a webline and tested it's strength with his fingers. It felt strong enough, and the web fluid inside the cartridges was designed to last for a long time even being exposed to air. Satisfied with the test so far - he'd have better luck out there - he donned his mask to complete his disguise for the first time in a year, and he checked his costume. It felt comfy even though he hadn't been in it for over a year, but it would definitely do for tonight.

Opening the window, Spider-Man paused. There was no going back now.

* * *

Elis was looking forward to a night in bed. One thing they never told you was driving an armoured van was that you would be driving it at night, constantly afraid in case a bomb would explode underneath the van, blasting you end over end, knocking you almost unconscious as the robbers stole from the back.

Elis sighed as he pushed those gloomy thoughts out of his mind, and focused on the task at hand, glancing once or twice at the rookie sitting next to him. The kid was young, this was his first night, something Elis wished he was on, but he'd been doing this "terrible job" as his wife repeatedly told him because she was worried he'd get hurt, and he had once or twice during his ten year career.

The night had been going well, but Elise knew better than to expect any kind of peace. The van was just passing by a corner, when-

"What the hell is that?!" The kid yelled even as the van blundered straight into - the web? - hanging between two lampposts.

Elis put the van into reverse, but the van wouldn't move no matter what he did, no matter how many times he tried to pull away. He had no idea that outside the van thick webbing was holding the forward and back wheels immobile.

The kid jumped when his door was ripped off, and before either of them could truly get a good look at the extraordinary figure in the door before their vision was clouded by webbing. Elis tried moving his hand to his piece, but he wasn't fast enough. A gloved hand pushed it away and he felt a sticky substance glue his hand to the metal wall of the van.

* * *

Spider-Man was glad of his full face mask, it hid the discomfort he felt at robbing the van, but he had come this far. The doors of the van were specially reinforced and very strong, but they proved no match for him. He found six money bags inside, but his opened two of them to be sure they carried money. He was glad they did, but now he was faced with a problem; how many bags should he take? There was enough money in one bag to see him and Aunt May through for months, never mind his promise to Heather. With that in mind, he grabbed four of the bags, and created a crude web harness to stick them to his back.

Within minutes he was gone.

* * *

 **Please leave a review, and Happy Christmas.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I'd like to thank all the readers, and I hope they had wonderful Christmas. As always please tell me if you like this story, and if you've got any idea then please let me know.**

2.

Peter looked at the small fortune he'd picked up from the last few nights. Scattered around his room were money bags, some of them already empty with the money arranged into neat stacks with small glittering diamonds set into rings and necklaces nearby. Some of the money would be slowly trickled into the Parker accounts to pay off the bills like the rest had already, but it would have to be done carefully to avoid suspicion. He would tell the bank he was doing a paper delivery job or delivering pizzas in case they asked, hopefully he'd get a proper part time job to help launder the cash into his accounts, but he would cycle the money carefully and slowly. But some of the money would be going into small envelopes and sent to Heather to help her and Louise. The jewelry... Peter wasn't sure about, he'd have to find the pawn shops; he knew one or two in Manhattan, but he would need to be careful with where he went. At some point, if he continued his career as a cat burglar, Peter would have to find a fence or two for the goods. But he would keep one or two in hiding somewhere for a rainy day. For now, he decided to clear everything up and deal with it in the morning.

Once in bed, Peter reflected on how things had been going and what his future plans would be. Since donning webs and mask again, Peter had managed to successfully rob a number of places, and used his spider powers to escape capture, and any of his cash proceeds either went into storage for later or were used to pay for the essentials; electricity, water, gas, food, and Aunt May's hospital bills. Some of the money had even found its way in envelopes and pushed through the door of Heather's house. Peter had had to listen to Heather on the rare occasion he saw her nowadays - she was either too busy studying or caring for her mother - wonder who had done it, but it was clear she would take the money. He had seen Heather's mother prior to Luigi firing them, and compared to the woman lying in bed now, there was a significant improvement to her condition now just like there was with Aunt May's care. It still galled Peter that some doctors didn't take the Hippocratic oath seriously, and simply saw their charges as banks to bleed dry.

Peter shook his head to focus on what else he had to do. The most important thing would be to upgrade his equipment; his utility belt needed more compartments for lockpicks, a torch, some spare cash. But to do that he would need to find a way to modify his webshooters to make them more efficient, so he didn't need to give the majority of his utility belt space to the storage of new cartridges. He'd look into that soon. For the heist he'd just been on, Peter had gotten shot at by a couple of cops. They'd picked him out, especially in the dark, so that meant a new costume as well, preferably a black one was in order. The good news was he had gotten lucky, depending on his spider sense and agility to avoid the shells, but he couldn't depend on his luck and spider sense indefinitely. Sooner or later someone would put a bullet in him, and he would have a hard time getting it out and healing the wound. Hospital staff were instructed under the law to report bullet wounds, so if he was shot by anything he would find it hard to work up a convenient story.

As he lay in bed once his plans had been sorted through - there'd be plenty of time in the morning - Peter couldn't help but feel that deciding to pursue a life of crime was better than doing nothing. His hauls had certainly stopped the problems with the bailiffs and the banks though pushing the money into his account was going slowly, but he also needed to do something about Aunt May.

One thing was certain; Peter was sure he could juggle his new dual identity, he wasn't going to be stressed trying to attend his classes at college, and he wasn't going to be late for anything like a date. But Peter did feel that, as Spider-Man, he would and could save people from something like a fire, or from a car about to run them over, but only that. He wasn't going to fight anyone. A few good deeds would go a long way.

But Peter knew he couldn't live on crime alone. If he wasn't careful then people would begin to notice the fact he was getting money in, and eventually it would get out he wasn't just a burglar, but Spider-Man as well.

* * *

The next few days, he and Heather scoured the newspaper job columns at her place after he'd phoned her one day and told her he was looking for work and he was hoping they could do it together, looking for work that was better than Luigi's anyday of the week. They kept away from full time work because they couldn't sustain it with their lives as school and college students and time they could care for their sick relatives. Eventually they became part time cleaners, and they thanked god for how flexible their new jobs were, and because they had both applied for the same location they worked together.

Because he was now a college student, Peter was able to ask for more hours than Heather could work, and as a compromise he split his pay with her so then she could receive much the same amount he did, but she wasn't happy because that money should go into his own needs. It had resulted in a rare argument with Heather, and eventually they compromised again by Peter agreeing to give her only a small amount and just that. But realistically, Peter didn't need to give her any money from the cleaning job at all; the envelopes he pushed through the letterbox of her home were filled with more than enough cash to help her and Louise. But Heather didn't know his involvement in that little 'mystery.'

All in all the pay from their new jobs weren't perfect, but it was much better than what Luigi had given them, and it was much easier for them stress wise. The cleaning company just gave them a place and let them get on with their job.

* * *

In the meantime, Peter collected the newspaper stories and articles screaming about Spider-Man, and by now there were quite a few. It hadn't taken Jameson long to crucify his alter ego, and the editor proved his long memory when he continuously repeated in dozens of his recent editorials about seeing Spider-Man's entertainment acts, and how it would only be a matter of time before he started robbing for money, and he was leading the charge of the newspaper editors throughout New York decrying Spider-Man's actions.

When Peter had first read the editorials about how Spider-Man had been simply biding his time before committing crimes for cash, he had been angry. How dare this jumped up editor who knew nothing about him make up half truths without considering what the man under the Spider-Man mask had gone through, but now he was indifferent. Contrary to what Jameson probably thought, Peter wasn't trying to get rich by theft; he was trying to ensure his last living family and his friend and her mother survived. Where was the harm in that? But Peter had to admit Jameson had good points; yes, he had entertained people, and yes he had become a criminal recently, but Jameson had either not noted or seen the time factor. It had been a full year since Spider-Man had entertained anyone, and surely if he had wanted to become a criminal so soon he would've done it shortly after making his first appearance? But the man had conveniently ignored that bit, and the public had followed like sheep would follow a shepherd.

The thought was banished quickly; Peter or Spider-Man were unlikely to encounter Jameson any time soon, though the idea of robbing the editor was quickly ruled out. The last thing he needed would be to be the cause of a rainforest being decimated because of the angry editorials as a consequence.

Peter had also noticed Uncle Ben's speech about responsibility had seemed to disappear. Was his Uncle's spirit pleased by what he was doing? No. Ben Parker wasn't the type of man to condone robbery, but truthfully Peter no longer cared. The weight he had been feeling for so many months deciding what to do with his powers and trying to support and care for Aunt May had faded, and he was enjoying the rush as he stole from jewellery stores and from vans. For the last year he had been responsible for half of the already meagre income for the family, and that was more important that fighting a few muggers and earning costumed supervillains wearing stupid tights for himself. Now he knew the advice his Uncle had given him had many meanings he no longer let it bother him. But part of Peter wondered, given Ben's love for comic superheroes, if his uncle would've been happier if he had used his powers the same way the Fantastic Four and other so called costumed heroes used theirs in real life. No. The thought of using his powers and getting nothing but hatred back was something Peter was used to already as Peter Parker, and not happy to get anymore as Spider-Man.

He'd been right; responsibility could mean anyone providing it wasn't just to himself. He was putting money, both legal and illegal into the Parker account, and he was paying for his Aunt's treatment, and he was giving his best friend money...

Peter smiled as he thought once more about Heather. Though she was clearly mystified by the money coming into her home, she was at least putting it to good use. He'd seen how much better the quality of food Heather was bringing in now, it was a step up from the slop she'd been forced to endure during the time they'd worked together at Luigi's.

* * *

As Peter sat next to his Aunt for one of his visits when he wasn't in college or at work, he could see some improvements already to her outward health. Her skin looked much healthier than it had before, and she seemed less frail than that fateful day he and Heather had stopped working for Luigi.

Peter wondered what had happened to the little fool, but shook his head. Luigi didn't matter anymore, in fact Peter was tempted to walk up to the little man and thank him from the bottom of his heart; if he hadn't fired Peter and Heather, then they wouldn't have found better work, and Peter wouldn't have become Spider-Man again or made his choice. For the past year Peter had tried not to think of his alter ego, which understandably brought back memories of Uncle Ben and his failure to act, but also because he simply didn't have any idea what he should do with his powers at the time. Hero work was a definite out; the way the Fantastic Four acted after that incident, the editorials Jameson and virtually every single paper in town that followed and the hate directed to certain superheroes made the whole thing truly unattractive. Truthfully, Peter had deep down realised that, when the time came, he would choose to become a criminal; when he'd originally thought about it when faced with the dilemma of how he and Aunt May were going to cope without Uncle Ben's solid presence, the thought had been instantaneous and badly thought through, but he'd given himself a year to decide what to do. Now he had made his decision he felt wonderful, but as long as he kept a cool head - a definite need for a thief - he wouldn't lose anyone like Aunt May or Heather.

"I've got to get to work soon, Aunt May," Peter whispered after he checked his watch, "I know cleaning work's not the type of job you would've wanted for me, but truthfully its ideal; better and more flexible working hours, slow, quiet and dependable. I don't have to breathe cigarette smoke or listen to the raucous laughter like I did in Luigi's, or see disgusting scum touch Heather or other waitresses up. Anyway, the pay is consistent and worth it. You'll get better soon."

He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek before picking up his coat and left the room. He asked his regular questions to the nurses before he left and headed for work. When Peter signed on at the cleaning site, he saw from his watch he had three hours to kill at work before he had to get to college. When Heather had suggested he drop out of college, Peter had in truth been tempted to stop going, or better yet drop out now and reapply later when his old schoolmates had left and finished their higher educations. College was just like High School in Peter's mind, except the place was larger and there was a part time schedule for students like Peter to attend, which he took advantage of to earn the cash he and his aunt desperately needed to survive. But with people like Mary Jane and Flash Thompson attending there, Peter found the place too much like school for his own comfort. It was clear Flash was only there to get a better chance of becoming a pro football star, though truthfully Peter had no idea why the brainless jock was attending, and frankly didn't care just like he didn't care about Mary Jane's vocation. Peter never spoke to him or his group of brainless lackeys, and if, in the future, someone tried to set up a reunion for his old school friends, he would probably refuse to consider going.

The thought of school reunions made him frown, earning him one or two looks which he didn't notice. He'd never understood the point of them; most of the people who were going were people who'd bullied or annoyed you, that outweighed how many friends you had. In Peter and Heather's case, that was too many people. Besides, Peter honestly had no intention of meeting any of his old schoolmates; it wasn't as though he was close to them, and they didn't think much of him. Would Peter really want to know, in 30 odd years time, what they'd done with themselves, whether they were successes or not? (Rhetorical question.) Of course he didn't, he'd stopped caring what had happened to his schoolmates long ago. He didn't care about the past now, just the future. School reunions were not part of his future plans.

Fortunately, Peter rarely saw Flash, and Peter thanked his lucky stars that his extracurricular activities meant he was too busy to care what the jock was doing with his life, the differences of their respective educations made it easier to avoid one another, and even if they did meet it was usually when the pair of them were rushing in different directions. The idiot boy sometimes guffawed at the grief Peter was going through like it was the most hilarious thing he had ever heard, though he did tone it down a little bit at times, but that didn't make Peter like him or think Flash was mellowing out. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that. Flash believed he was cool because of his school football star image, that his cool haircut and jokes made him look and sound good and cool as well, but Peter didn't want anything to do with him.

Mary Jane Watson had quickly risen to be part of the popular girls in the college, but like Flash she really saw or even had contact with Peter. It was different with Mary Jane than it was with Flash; unlike the jock who regularly went out of his way to verbally attack Peter, Mary Jane just looked at him as though she didn't know him.

That suited him just fine, because he had no real desire to know her.

* * *

As Peter worked on his knees, scrubbing the floor as Heather worked silently on wiping down the surfaces. "How's your mum?" Peter asked as they entered the second hour of their three hour shift at the site.

"She's much better, thanks," Heather replied, not bothering to look at him as she was concentrating on her own work, "she's a bit put out that I've told the school I'm taking care of her, but after the Principal came round to my house and promised to deliver all my work to catch up, she's much happier. She was worried I was missing out on my future."

Peter looked up and smiled. This was a recent development; after realising how little time she had for work, Heather had spoken to the Principal of her school and told her she had to take full time care of her mother until she was sufficiently better to take care of herself. Fortunately the Principal and her deputy were both aware of the problem, and they had done their level best to give Heather much needed leeway, and they had visited the family home and saw for themselves how dedicated Heather was. She showed them that when she was not working or looking after her mother, she was also studying.

They did ask why she didn't hire a carer, but the teenager had told them she didn't trust carers; she had checked the reviews of some companies, and found they were either indifferent to the needs of the individual, or they stole from them. It was amazing how many companies received black marks by the media. Peter didn't know beyond the details Heather had given him about what was said, but they had insisted she attend school at different hours to help her catch up with her work. Heather had gone for it; the more chance she had for both her mother and her school work, the better. Sometimes she attended at night.

"How's college?" Heather asked, not wanting to get talking about the state of her present education.

Peter glowered at her, making her giggle. But he smiled. He liked it when she giggled. "It's not going badly," he admitted, "I'm enjoying the classes, and as long as I stay away from certain people, I'm fine."

Heather looked at him for a long moment sympathetically. "Still having problems with Thompson?"

Peter nodded. He'd told her stories of what Thompson and that stupid group had done to him during his time at school, one of the good things about college education was he didn't have to deal with them much.

"Not quite, I barely see him anymore. And when I do its usually fleeting, though he does think its funny I'm working, but he does seem to regret laughing about my aunt."

Heather shook her head, and Peter was fairly sure he heard the word "bastard" being whispered, but she smiled at him. Peter smiled back at her, that feeling of butterflies back in his stomach.

* * *

Peter was just walking to the hospital room where Aunt May was resting for his most recent visit, already feeling the stirring of hope that she could leave the hospital and come home. She had responded to treatment, and she was now strong enough to speak, but for Peter it would be the first time in nearly a month since he had spoken to her, and he was looking forwards to having the first conversation with the last member of his family.

He was just turning a corner when he bumped into someone.

"Hello Peter," Anna Watson greeted him in a cool manner.

"Mrs Watson," Peter said just as coolly. He had never liked Anna Watson just like she didn't like him, the woman had always felt that he was irresponsible, that he always put himself above others. She seemed blind to how stressed Peter was trying to support and care for his aunt whilst simultaneously studying at college and working at the same time. Anna seemed to believe that if he genuinely cared for May then he would spend all his time in the room, but he couldn't do any of that. He had to support himself and his aunt. But Peter had another reason to dislike the woman; Anna and May had been the ones to set him up on a date with Anna's niece, Mary Jane Watson. At the time, Peter had been burdened with school, worrying about income, and being so busy he had nearly worked himself to death, the last thing he had wanted let alone needed was to date some girl he didn't know, a date set up by his well meaning aunt and a friend who was so criticising of him it was not funny. Peter hadn't been happy with the prospect of a date with a girl whom he didn't even know, he had no idea what this Mary Jane even looked like for heaven's sake. But Peter had gone through with it because he was so overworked he needed a break. He also hadn't seen then harm that dating a girl could do, and who knows where it would have taken him, even if he was sorry it wasn't Heather. At the time Peter had still been sorting out his feelings for Heather, and then he'd met Mary Jane, and whilst he had been entranced with her beauty he had quickly seen how vapid and self absorbed Mary Jane was. In fact, he had noticed it the moment he'd met her. Not something that bode well in the future. She had asked him offhandedly what he did, and when he'd tried to tell her she'd lost interest as soon as two words left his mouth, and after that things had gotten stale. Peter had also gotten the impression she had been as annoyed by the date as he had, that she was only doing it to humour their respective aunts. As the date wore on, that suspicion only grew into certainty.

Things had not improved, no it had taken a nose dive. They had met Flash Thompson and a few of his pals, and something about his jock image had called to Mary Jane's party loving persona, and she had swiftly dumped "the nerd" as she'd termed Peter, and walked off with Flash. She didn't spare a backward glance. Peter had returned home, humiliated and furious. He had told his aunt to never set him up on a date ever again. Not that he would ever want to date Mary Jane ever again, he didn't even speak to the girl. He had seen her a few times since, but he went out of his way to ignore her. With the way his life had gone, it wasn't difficult. Mary Jane made it easier because she didn't go out of her way to speak back to him.

This was around the time he had met Heather. Compared to Mary Jane, she would be considered plain, but there was something more striking to Peter than the shallow girl he had been forced to go out with. Heather was going through things much like he was, and they were very close. The moment they had met they had some kind of bond that had merely deepened the more time they spent around one another. And she had something that Mary Jane lacked for all that beauty.

"Is Aunt May awake?" he asked, pushing by her without a word, but Anna Watson wasn't happy about that, and she grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hold it a minute, you think you can go in there after not being with her-" Peter instantly froze and he turned towards her, and something in his expression shut her up immediately. "Take that hand off my shoulder," he hissed angrily before his patience ebbed, "take it off before I snap it!"

"Peter!" Aunt May's voice was shocked, it seemed that the altercation had taken place in her sight, but he didn't care. He only hoped that she had heard and seen enough to know he was being provoked. "Anna, stop it, take that hand off his shoulder."

Anna looked between the two Parkers, the angry one and the one lying helplessly on the bed, and she silently left. Peter shook his head as she departed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to his aghast aunt, but he had to let it out, "I just get annoyed by how she goes on about how selfish I am when all I do is try to care for you."

Ordinarily May would defend her friend, but after seeing and hearing for herself how Anna treated her nephew after how hard he worked, she wasn't going to waste her breath for Anna. "No, don't apologise," she said gently, "how are you doing?"

May's motherly concern did more to make Peter smile except probably Heather. "Not too bad," he replied honestly, and truthfully it wasn't; between college, his nights as Spider-Man, and his new job and his time with Heather and her mother, and worrying about May, Peter had finally managed to strike some kind of balance. "I've got a new job, and college is going well-"

"Speaking of work, what happened to make you get a new job?" May's brow creased. "I heard you when I was asleep, Peter, but the details are kind of blurry."

Peter wasn't surprised by his aunt's statement; it was well documented coma patients were aware of people speaking over them, doctors, nurses, friends and family. Peter had toyed with admitting to his aunt about what happened with his Uncle Ben and the mess he'd made of things with that crook, but he'd held back. Although he would love to receive some kind of judgement from May, he wasn't ready for it just yet, not after a year things had gotten out of hand.

He sighed. "Luigi fired me and Heather, he'd come up with this little scheme to test whether or not we were sincere about wanting extra hours working at the restaurant, but he conveniently didn't contact either of us to let us know, so when we arrived it gave him the proof we weren't sincere."

"And he fired you?" May whispered in disbelief.

Peter nodded and looked down at his hands. "I'm glad he did," he admitted. "I hated that job. The place was filthy, the clientele were scum, especially the ones who touched Heather up-"

"How is Heather? Is the poor dear okay?" May piped up, anything to get away from talking about the sewer that was Luigi's. It had never been what she and Ben had wanted or expected their nephew to do, but it had brought in much needed income and took the pressure off her.

"Oh, she's alright. She's still looking after her mother, but she's working in the same cleaning job I am, but she's gone part time at school until Louise is back on her feet. She looks much better by the way," he added with a smile.

May smiled back. She liked Heather. May had met her and Louise once when the pair of them had been fussed over at a dinner when the two teens had become very close. That dinner had taken place after that disastrous date she and Anna had set up for Peter and Mary Jane, and it was that date which prevented May from trying it again with Heather. But she had noticed something between the teens, Louise had as well, but if they were meant to get together then she would let them do it themselves. Then her expression became serious. "The doctors said you'd been sitting here by yourself," she started, seeing her nephew's relaxed face become tauter. "Is that true?"

Peter nodded. "As far as I know, only Anna Watson and myself have bothered to visit. I haven't seen any of your other friends."

May let out a shuddering breath as she leaned back in her pillows. She and her friends had drifted apart over the last year since Uncle Ben; the stresses due to her declining health and their financial issues making things worse, but she would've imagined that one or two of her friends would've had the heart to be there for her.

"And even she hasn't been any help," Peter went on, "she just sits nearby, talking about herself and her days. She never bothers to ask how you are, how I'm coping, she's just like that good for nothing bitch of a niece."

"Language."

"It's true," Peter insisted, not backing down. "I come in here, talk to you about how its going, asking when you're going to wake up, and Anna's talking about discount shoes going for a quarter or a third of their price, and this is where she annoys me, she always says it in a sing song voice, like she knows you can hear but never do anything about it."

May just lay there, doing her best not to show her nephew how she felt. Anna Watson had been one of her best friends for years, and in all that time she had never had but the best impression of her. No, that wasn't exactly true, she conceded. Anna could be very opinionated at times, be very sure of herself. One of their biggest falling outs had been when they'd tried setting Mary Jane up with Peter. But May had done it with the best of intentions, something Peter understood, but whatever Anna's motives were, May now no longer cared to guess, but at the time they had been furious with how things had gone. Things were still tense between them. Peter had come a long way in confidence over the year since Ben's death, he had to since he was putting up half of the family's already meagre income, and he'd gotten a part time job, but Anna had felt, and May had gone along with it, that Peter could be more confident with a girl by his side. Anna made it sound so medieval, but at the time May had been frightened for her nephew's mental and physical wellbeing. It just wasn't healthy for poor Peter to shoulder so much responsibility ontop of his life at school. The poor dear was always so stressed out, so harried that May was afraid he'd burn out. May had met Mary Jane, but the meeting had been rushed so she hadn't managed to get a feel for the girl. She had met her more often after the date, and she had not liked the girl at all. To make matters worse the girl had tried to blame how the date had gone on Peter, but Peters anger and the general vibe she had gotten from Mary Jane had shown May her friend's niece was anything but an angel like she appeared.

"So, you're doing cleaning work now?" She said to change the subject, but they both knew that they would speak about this again soon.

"It's the only work I can get that's flexible and covers more hours I can work, study and take care of you," Peter said. "I know its not what you wanted for me, but for now its the best I can do. It's temporary, and hopefully it will lead to something better."

May knew that her nephew was good at making the best in bad situations, and she had faith in him. "Okay. I hope you were fine before being fired by that dreadful restaurant manager."

"I'm better now, but it was a nightmare working, studying and paying for your treatment. The hospital were asking for more, far more than I could give," Peter shook his head. "Now I've got this job, I can get a lot more. It may be in the same pittance category as Luigi's, but the pay amount's far better."

May nodded.

* * *

Peter preened as he stood in his new Spider-Man suit in front of the mirror. It had taken him a week to make, but it was far simpler than his original costume without the silk screen pattern. This new costume was black with two white spiders, one on his back and the other on his front. Both were fairly small, identical in design to the original spider on his former costume, but they were the only decorations aside from the white triangles on both of his gloves. It had taken him so long to make because he had been searching for the right equipment to add to it. He had sketched the new design for his webshooters, a new design which was more efficient and make more use of his supply of web fluid than his present pair, and he was thinking of adding additional weapons and gadgets to them to maximise their potential, but he hadn't made them yet since he was still working on the basics of their design, but he had added more webcartidges to his belt. He'd also started researching lockpicking, but he was a long way from becoming an expert, but he was taking a step in the right direction, and he would continue to adjust and add to the costume in due time. But for right now he had a heist to see to. He put on his mask and his disguise was completed.

Turning off his light, Spider-Man crept over to the window and was out into the night. It took him half an hour to reach the jewellery shop he had spent the last two weeks planning to rob, and it took him less than a minute to open one of the doors and slip inside. Successive squirts of webbing at the security cameras, and Spider-Man felt safe. He knew security cameras had night vision capability; what would be the point of installing a camera that worked at night if it couldn't see in the dark?

Spider-Man opened case after case, webbing as many diamond rings, necklaces and put them into a small ball of webbing that he attached to his hip. He looked around to see if there was anything he had missed before he walked out of the room, and back through the office. Once there, he paused and stopped by the safe. Peter had known from the day he had told Aunt May he had planned to drop out of school to help with the family income he could have compensated with becoming a world class thief; his spider powers would have provided him with the means of spying on people without anyone being any the wiser, and with that he could learn the combinations of different safes he had targeted.

It was easier breaking into a safe if you knew the combination, that way you didn't need to be bogged down by heavy equipment; cutting torches, drills, explosives. Peter had studied this store, and he had bugged it with equipment he had purchased recently, but fortunately he had removed all traces of those before he'd committed the job, and he knew the safe contained money. Kneeling down, he examined the combination lock. It was a keypad that made things so much easier, and his memory instantly recalled the combination number. When the safe was opened, he smiled under his mask at the sight of the money rolls. Spider-Man moved his hands as he used his webshooters to create a ready made web sack, making it nice and thick but light at the same time, and then he reached into the safe and removed the money. He replaced the money with a slip of paper, with the message "Thanks, Courtesy of Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Underneath the words was a black, red and blue spider. Once the money was stuck to his other side, Spider-Man left the way he'd come. As he webbed closer to Forest Hills, Peter considered how things were going; his heists were going nicely, and if they continued to be profitable he would remain as Spider-Man. That was a thought, he hadn't really considered what he was going to do with himself later in life. He would love to graduate and become a scientist, but he still wanted to be a thief. Peter had no intention of living the way he had for the last year ever again, and he decided he would do some charity work for those who were going through much the same thing as he had done; working for a dingy and disgusting boss in a filthy environment, getting lousy pay, under heavy pressure from school or college, trying to cope and care for a relative.

Despite his different choice, Peter still felt sure he should and could do something just as positive with his spider powers. Once Peter was closer to Queens, he stopped web slinging; he had no idea how many people were still awake, and though he depended on his spider sense to alert him to danger he knew that some people would not be registered as a threat; he remembered how once a neighbor had been distracted walking down the street and he hadn't even known until his spider sense had tingled that he was about to be shouldered.

Besides, with the police and the Daily Bugle and other newspapers publishing stories about his crimes, people would probably phone for help if they saw him web by. It was safer to leap from one building to another, clinging to the sides to reach home. As soon as he arrived home, Peter looked around, in the back garden, along the sides, and eventually he crawled in.

He didn't know that Heather was just walking through the door at that exact time, his spider sense not registering her. As he took off the web bags, he went downstairs and a light flicked on.

"Peter!?" Heather's surprised shout startled him just as the light had been flicked on. Peter gazed at her aghast, he hadn't intended to reveal who and what he was until much later. Why hadn't his spider sense alerted him to her presence? Peter was kicking himself, he had been so pleased he had once more successfully robbed someplace he hadn't bothered taking other precautions. He had done it again, become cocky.

Both teenagers were presently in hysterics, but Heather was moving in hyperventilation. "Peter...you're...Spider-Man," she gasped, and she moved her hands, and for the first time Peter noticed the jar of soup. Louise, like May, believed he should eat more and she didn't believe he was eating anything at all. Peter found it sweet of her, and he enjoyed the attention of a woman he genuinely liked.

Heather gasped and she almost dropped the jar, and would have done too if Peter didn't suddenly move to catch it and steady her with his other arm. Heather fainted.

* * *

Heather woke up on the couch, and looked around for Peter. She was ashamed of herself for fainting the way she had, but those thoughts were snuffed out when she finally found Peter. He was sitting in a chair opposite. He was dressed in an open shirt that showed off his black Spider-Man costume, and he was dressed in a regular pair of pants. So it wasn't a dream, she mused to herself.

"Hi," she whispered, feeling quite foolish and more than a little angry. How dare Peter keep this from her?

"Hi," Peter tried to smile reassuringly, but he didn't manage it. He looked down at his feet, embarrassed, but at the same time he was worried for Heather; why hadn't she reacted differently? Why was she behaving so mildly?

"You really are Spider-Man?" Heather said; what else could she say? For the last month or so, Spider-Man and his crimes had dominated the news, how he broke in silently and effectively in jewellery stores and robbed them blind. Heather hadn't given much thought to Spider-Man, she had had her own problems, and the thought of another superpowered criminal meant little to her.

"Yes," Peter whispered, fiddling with his hands. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you-"

"No, it's fine," Heather interrupted, blinking in surprise; had he planned to tell her what he was doing? Why would he do that?

Peter looked into her face. "I'm sorry I've screwed up. I'd planned to tell you the truth, tell you how I felt-"

"Peter, let's just take this slowly, shall we?" Heather said, feeling the butterfly feeling in her heart and stomach. Did he mean he had feelings for her like she had for him? She pushed that out of the way to focus on what was bigger.

"How are you Spider-Man, I mean were you born this way?"

"No. A year ago, I was on a school trip to this genetics laboratory. The researchers were experimenting with combining the traits of different animals and putting them into others. One side of the lab had different animal species like cats, dogs, and even apes. But there were spiders as well. One of the spiders had escaped, and it bit me on my thumb. I don't know if it was something to do with the experiment, to create an easier way to splice animal and insect DNA into human beings, but somehow the spider venom spliced itself into my DNA. I never found out if they were deliberately trying to replicate the natural abilities of a spider into a human being; that would explain why the venom acted like a gene therapy virus and spliced the spider DNA into my DNA, but I don't know, just like I never found out what the scientists were trying to do in the first place.

"Anyway, I left feeling sick and groggy. No one really noticed me leaving, everyone knew I got sick easily, and I made my way back home to sleep it off. The next morning I was feeling better, but stranger."

"How did you feel strange?" Heather asked curiously, enthralled with the story rather than sickened.

Peter looked thoughtful as he tried to put the sensations he had felt that first morning after discovering the changes to his body, and the resultant changes to his life. But if he wanted Heather to have any kind of life with her, he had to be honest. "I'd always been skinny, always needed glasses," he decided to begin with the basics, "but the next morning, I found I could see far better than I had when I had needed a prescription. Also, my body had some muscles, not enough to be like a jock, but decent enough for my physique and general height. I went downstairs, and I leapt from the stairs. When I went to school, I missed the bus, and had to chase it. In the past such a run would've exhausted me, but that day I wasn't exhausted."

Peter looked away as he remembered other events going on that day. "I got into a fight with Flash Thompson, and that was the kicker because I'd never tried to fight him before since he'd win hands down each time. It was for a petty reason, he always liked taking pretend punches at me, to make me cower with fright. But that day, I wasn't afraid. He tried to hit me, I blocked the blow. Then he got angry, and he and some of his friends tried to punch me from different sides, but none of their blows touched me. It was as though I had someone whispering in my ear, telling me where they would punch me next. It turns out I do. It's an ability that warns of impending danger.

"Anyway, to make a long story short, I was able to stop Flash from hurting me, and I kicked him away, and he was rendered unconscious. I bunked school for the rest of the day, and I ran till I found myself in an alleyway. I was amazed by what I could do, and I looked at the bite..."

 _Peter stood in the alleyway, taking deep breaths. He couldn't believe what had happened, had he just beaten Flash Thompson?_ But how _? He asked himself as he tried to make sense of what had happened since he had woken up, first he had felt better than he had in years, his vision was perfect, and he had suddenly gained a more muscular appearance overnight._

 _What was going on? What was happening to him?_

 _He looked around the alley, and then his eyes spotted it. A spider web. It was set between two pipes and an overhead ladder. A spider was calmly laying more web to set its trap for_ passing _bugs._

 _No, Peter thought to himself as the idea bloomed in his head. How was it possible?_

 _He looked down at the bite he'd received from that spider at the lab the day before. It was red, and inflamed, but it was much smaller than he would've expected._

 _Did he_... _did he have the same abilities of a spider? Peter looked closely at his hands, seeing the tiny hairs that_ were suddenly sprouting _from his fingers. He knew spiders could cling to surfaces with little hairs that contained even smaller hairs hundreds of_ nanometres _in width, but was he now capable...?_

 _Peter turned around and faced the brick wall, and very slowly and experimentally he placed both hands with his fingers spread outward, and he pulled himself up. He was clinging to the wall!_

"I climbed that wall, going higher with every moment. I waited for something to happen, something that would make the hairs now on my hands to retract, something that would make me fall to the ground, but I never did."

 _Peter climbed higher until he was on top of the roof, and he found a piece of pipe sticking out. Remembering the scientists yesterday expand on how they had taken and combined the genetics of different spiders with different attributes, Peter reached out and grasped the pipe in one hand, and then he made a bending motion._

"I snapped the pipe."

 _The pipe snapped, and Peter gasped. Even after seeing the proof of his newfound abilities, clinging to walls, leaping to avoid being punched, having some kind of danger sense, and being up here, he was still amazed. What else could his new_ body do _?_

 _He brought the pipe closer. It was rusted, but very strong and thick. No one could bend or twist it, not a normal person. Peter took both ends_ in _both hands, and he twisted the pipe, the metal shrieked a bit as it was bent into a different shape._

Peterbrought himself back to the here and now, as he looked at Heather. "I experimented with my powers a bit more. But I found that although I had the strength, speed and reflexes of a spider, I didn't have the ability to make webbing. I think its because the gene that controls the spider's ability to create webbing is too complex for a human being to replicate, but there was a compromise."

Heather blinked as she made out the two small bracelets attached to both his hands. "What are they?" she asked curiously.

The silver bracelets wrapped around both of Peter's wrists. They were mounted on a band of black material to clearly make them more comfortable to wear, but there was a red metal disc in the centre of his palm, also resting on a piece of this black material, and there was a small nozzle.

"My webshooters. I think, after that spider bit me, it passed on a subconscious or instinctive knowledge of how to combine different chemicals and enzymes to produce webbing. I created the first batch of web fluid, and eventually completed the mechanism by making these bracelets."

"Cool," Heather whispered, but what else could she say?

"Watch this," Peter said and fired a strand of webbing at the ceiling, before he made an adjustment to the nozzle, and he fired a fine white spray before resetting the nozzle to its original position. Meanwhile, Heather was examining the webbing Peter had shot at the ceiling, running her fingers over it. It was like touching a sticky kind of silk, well it was.

"You're going to have to clean this up for when May comes home," she observed.

Peter shook his head. "I don't need to," he replied, enjoying explaining what he had achieved. "Like real spider webbing, mine is biodegradable. It'll dissolve in an hour or so."

Heather looked at him, assimilating this new information, but she wanted to know something she had had on her mind since she had discovered the truth about her best friend.

"Peter, I can understand how excited you were about your powers, but if you'd gotten them a year ago and practiced them a day later, why have you recently become big news by becoming a thief?"

Peter's expression became regretful, and Heather regretted her own question, but Peter pushed that aside visibly, and looked into her eyes.

"I'll tell you."

* * *

Will Heather accept Peter? You tell me.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

"I spent the next week or so experimenting with my powers, testing how far they could go and what their limits were," Peter said after working out what he was going to say to Heather about how he had become Spider-Man and what had happened soon after he had gotten his powers, "one of my problems was putting my hands onto walls, pulling them away only to take off bits of the plaster or brick. It took me a while to learn that I can subconsciously decide whether to adhere to a wall or not, but it took time for me to practice until I was doing it for real and it became second nature. But I still didn't have a clue about what I wanted to do with my powers."

He went silent as he remembered those weeks of going to school, putting up with the rumours and the stares after what had happened to Flash. He remembered the looks he had received from girls he'd worked hard to try to muster the courage to speak too, only to discover he didn't care for them afterwards. It was strange, that reaction. For years Peter had been the social outcast in the school, and he had tried hard so many times to try to get in there with the girls his age. He had wanted with them what he had with Heather, friendship and maybe something more. But really, Peter had no real clue about why, after the spider bit him, he no longer gave a damn about girls like Sally or Liz. He still didn't, though he had noticed their interested looks since Uncle Ben's death. Peter couldn't help but think their timing was a bit sick; his Uncle had died and already they were looking interested in him. Where was their compassion? Nowadays he didn't care.

"I saw an ad in a newspaper - can't remember which one - that asked for different people with different talents to come to show off what they could do," he went on to take his mind off trying to figure out the thought processes of the girls he had known in school. "The winner would appear on live TV, with his or her own show. The idea of making such easy money doing little tricks was compelling, and I decided to give it a go. I knew that I couldn't appear as I was, so I had time to prepare. I started by entering a wrestling ring wearing a makeshift mask, and I brought down four wrestlers. At first everyone assumed I was a mad man in a mask, but when they saw what I'd done, they showered me with cash, and I used that cash to make myself a costume so I could appear at the audition.

"When I was finished, I saw a spider web outside, and then I subconsciously knew which enzymes and chemicals would make the strong sticky webbing. Creating the web liquid itself was simple, making the webshooters to complete the mechanism wasn't easy," Peter looked down at the bracelets in question, remembering all those times the nozzle spurted lines of webbing everywhere instead of a single, fixed direction. "It took me days to work on them, fine tuning them and refining the design. When I was finished I went for the audition, and I got in. My act was the most original they had seen, half of the people who'd gone were only doing it to make cash. It never occurred to them to try to look for a talent and exploit it."

Heather watched him and listened to his story as he smiled at the memory, even if it left a bitter taste in his mouth now since it had eventually led to a something that damaged his soul. "I made $300 in my first night alone, Heather," he said quietly, looking at his hands, remembering the feel of the wad of cash he'd held in his gloved hands that night. "If my Uncle Ben and Aunt May had tried making the same amount working, they would have needed to wait for a month to save it all up. And yet it took me less than half an hour to make. I felt it was my big break, my big chance. This went on for another two weeks, and my act was becoming popular. I'd become a media darling, and more and more people were flocking to see me in action. I always varied it to make the audience gasp in amazement, to give them something unexpected. Under my mask I smiled each time they cheered whenever I did something like creating a web, tying a blindfold around my head, and dodging an obstacle course I'd had arranged to test my spider sense.

"I grew cocky with each performance I gave, for the first time in my life I was a star. Then it all changed for me."

"How?" Heather asked, she was stunned trying to picture her best friend as a boastful egoist. It was virtually impossible, but she could sort of imagine it because she tried putting herself in his place. If she had somehow become a superhuman herself and decided to make quick cash, awing and amazing people under a mask that hid her true features, she would've felt good about herself. Like Peter, Heather had been treated like a dog at school, and like him she had wanted to put them in their place, but they'd never had the proper means.

Peter sighed, this was the part of the story where things had started to go wrong. "You've got to keep in mind that the whole point of entering the entertainment business was to make money to take the strain off my Uncle and Aunt, but it was also to pay them back for their kindness. But somewhere along the line, I think its when I was becoming cockier and big headed, I started to lose sight of my original aim. But the real turning point was when I was asked to wrestle someone.

"An agent had been in the audience, he didn't say why he was even there, but I found out after it all changed that there were other, less nicer people, in the audience. But this agent, he came into my dressing room; I didn't want anyone to see what I looked like in case it got out, and I was getting ready to leave to change back into Peter Parker. But he made an offer I couldn't refuse. He offered me $800 to wrestle some of the best wrestlers in New York. How could I refuse?"

Heather blinked, seeing the emotion playing across Peter's face. It looked like a cross between shame and regret, but why, what had gone wrong? She knew that, a year ago, Ben Parker had died, but why was Peter so depressed by it? She could guess that there was something more than what she knew already; whenever the conversation had turned to Ben Parker, Peter always looked sad, regretful, and sometimes even angry. But why, what had he done?

"I won't bore you with the whole story of how I wrestled 10 wrestlers in the city," Peter went on, his expression grim, "but I did earn that $800 that night. I was just leaving the arena when a crook ran past me, holding a gun in one hand and a bag stuffed with money in the other. An old cop was chasing him. The cop was slow, so he called for me to stop him. Now, you can guess that with my powers it would've been easy for me to stop him, but I didn't stop him. I simply stood there, letting the thief run past. I said to the cop that I was an entertainer, it wasn't my job to catch thieves. I didn't see the need to get involved."

Peter looked down at his hands, clenching them angrily. This was the part of the story he hated the most, but he needed Heather to realise what had gone wrong.

"I was heading for the store my Uncle worked in," he said after giving himself a moment to try to work the memory of what had happened next out of his mind, "I knew he was still working since he had the longest shifts, and I wanted him to give me a ride home when he was finished. But when I arrived at the store, there were cops..."

* * *

 _Peter walked to the store_ _Uncle Ben worked at with a spring in his step, feeling very proud of himself. Even the knowledge he'd let a thief run past him meant nothing to the young man, after all it wasn't as though the thief had used the gun besides threatening a few people, right? True, his smile faded somewhat as he considered what he'd done, the thief might still injure people, but the police would deal with it. They were trained to do things like that, and they dealt with them all the time._

 _But, it wasn't his problem. He would let the cops do what they were paid and trained to do. It might not be what Captain America and other superheroes would have done, but Peter didn't care. He could imagine that other superheroes would've jumped into harms way without a thought and wrestled that robber, but Peter wasn't like them. He had just gained a lot more money, and soon he would reveal to his Aunt and Uncle how he'd come to it. Peter wasn't looking forward to that; he had no idea how Uncle Ben would react, but he knew his Aunt hated spiders, but would she hate him if he revealed he had their abilities? Uncle Ben's reaction might go both ways, but on the whole the man had always been supportive of him, tried his best to get him interested in things like sports and comics, and whilst the latter had succeeded, Peter had never managed to become popular as a sportsman. Before the spider bite, he could barely hold a baseball bat in both hands without trembling in fear._

 _Uncle Ben might be a bit disgusted by what had happened to Peter, but he would definitely support his budding career in showbiz, right? Peter honestly didn't know, but he knew that his Uncle valued hard work above all else, it was how he had made his living, and why he had taught Peter to use what he had to get anywhere. But would he be proud he was using his new powers like a circus clown made people laugh?_

 _Caught between jubilation and worry, Peter almost missed the police cordon as he approached the store his Uncle worked in. But when he saw the growing crowd, speaking over themselves as they tried to ask what was happening and get a picture in their minds, his heart went cold with dread. This was his the store his Uncle worked in, was he hurt?_

 _Using his spider strength to push the crowd away as the bodies of other people tried to bundle him in, Peter got through the throng in no time, and what he saw horrified him._

 _"Uncle Ben!?" Peter cried with horror, ignoring the police officers as they tried to hold him back, but considering his strength and reflexes, they may as well have tried to hold back thin air._

 _"It's okay, he's Ben's nephew," the store manager walked over to intervene. He looked pale, haggard and frightened. Peter simply ignored him as he focused on the body of his uncle._

 _He knelt next to his uncle, glaring at the cops as they realized who he was. "What happened?" Peter snapped, in no mood for politeness._

 _"A robber came in, ordered the till and safe money, and your Uncle tried to stop him, and-" the cop trailed off as the answer was obvious. Peter looked away from the woman's face and focused on Ben's instead. His Uncle was in a bad way, the bullet was somewhere in his chest, and he was coughing up blood. Peter looked around desperately, hoping to see paramedics coming with a trolley to stabilize his condition, but there were none. Peter's rational mind told him that there was nothing that could be done for Ben. The wound he had in the chest was too serious and_ _even if the paramedics_ _helped_ _him in time, he could still die on the way to the hospital._

 _"Uncle Ben?" he whispered; if this was going to be his Uncle's final moments, he didn't want to waste them._

 _"Peter?" Ben gasped, peering at him as though surprised he was even there._ _But Ben's voice pushed that away, and Peter had to lean over to hear him better, knowing Ben didn't have much time left, and he cursed the state of how the New York streets went; he could hear the distant sounds of sirens, but they were too far away, and by the time they arrived Ben would be dead._

 _"I'm proud of you, kid_ _," Ben whispered, "I'm proud of what you've become-"_

 _For a moment Peter wondered what he meant, and then he asked himself if Ben knew he had become superhuman. H_ ow _? He had cleaned up the webbing left over from the tests he'd made of his web shooter experiments, and he had always left the house to properly train his powers. Peter shook his head mentally, now was not the time to worry about that._

 _"I want you to look after May, promise me, Peter," Ben demanded, and for a moment some of his old fire came back into his eyes as he tried to push death out of the way to say his last words._

 _"I promise," Peter whispered._

 _"Look after yourself, learn to have fun with the things you can do, and remember, with great power, comes great responsibility," Ben's voice slurred at the end, and he went limp._

 _Peter shook his desperately. No, no, this couldn't be happening. When Peter realized there was nothing he could do, that his powers couldn't help him this time, he rocked back onto his bum and stared at his dead Uncle with shock. He was oblivious to everything, he didn't care he was sitting next to a corpse in the middle of a crowd, he didn't care about anything anymore. His mind had gone numb._

 _But his ears picked up something. The robber, he'd been cornered in a warehouse after being chased by the NYPD._

 _Peter stood up and told the cops he wanted a bit of time to himself to get his head around things, he overheard where the NYPD had cornered the robber. The good news was, a detective had been sent_ _already to deliver the death notice to his Aunt, so Peter wouldn't be the one responsible to tell her. Once the cops had left him to his own devices, Peter slipped into an alleyway. Hopefully, this wouldn't take long. He could leap and web sling from where he was towards the warehouse, and if he was lucky he could return to Forest hills with time to spare._

 _In full Spider-Man costume, Peter managed to web his way to the warehouse in no time at all. He had experimented with his web shooters and webbing to work out how strong the_ web lines _were, and he had been sure that like real spider webbing, the lines could hold his weight. But theory and practice were different things. But there was no other choice but to trust in how good he had made the webbing, but with a bit of trial and error, Peter had managed to web his way through the concrete jungle of New York. The web lines were incredibly elastic, but they were as strong as the real thing._

 _He paid no heed to the danger, even as his spider sense had given him adequate warning about potential hazards on the way to the warehouse, all that had mattered to Peter at the time was getting to the warehouse and dealing with the robber himself; the NYPD would surely wait him out before making a move, but Peter wasn't prepared to wait. He wanted justice now!_

 _Peter arrived at the warehouse, and he adhered to the side of a nearby tower. He surveyed the scene, his position giving him the perfect vantage point. The police had not wasted time; some may call the cops incompetent, doughnut guzzling fools who sat in cars all day, but they didn't waste time on things like this. There were squad cars everywhere, and they surrounded the warehouse. If the robber wanted to escape, his only hope was to surrender. There was no way out._

 _Sticking to the shadows, Peter fired a line_ _to a corner of the warehouse and stuck it to the tower he was sticking to. He had no intention of swinging over there, he'd be seen if he did that. The best way to get in was to attack like a spider._

 _If Peter Parker before his bite had tried this, he would've lost his grip and fallen noisily. But as Spider-Man, Peter had no trouble breaking into the warehouse. Apart from the flashing lights from the squad cars outside, the place was in pitch blackness, the light from outside_ _was_ _casting the interior in shadows, but that didn't bother Spider-Man. Peter could hear the frightened gasps from the robber. Peter didn't know if he was panicking about getting caught after robbing and murdering someone, whether he realized he was trapped and cornered and could not escape without firing that gun, and frankly didn't care._

 _Silently, Peter stalked the robber like a spider. The robber was standing close to a window, and he was clearly weighing his chances though his options were limited. Peter knew he could stay where he was, but he couldn't stay in this warehouse forever, and he probably wouldn't even try. He could try to hide, but the police would search the place and even if he got out he could be caught by them eventually. The robber could try to fight his way out, but he had a single gun and Peter had no idea how many bullets were still inside and how many more he had spare. The option was out too, the cops had guns themselves, and there were more of them than the thing that he had, but he could still have a chance to escape. After tonight he would never have another chance to hurt anyone again._

 _Peter watched quietly as the robber left the window and ran_ _through to_ _the_ _other side, but he saw the same problem. Peter used his distraction, he dropped from the ceiling, alerting the robber to his presence. The thief tried raising his gun, but Spider-Man had seen the move, and fired a thick wad of webbing at the man's hand, rendering the gun useless._

 _Spider-Man leapt at the thief, delivering a punch to the man's jaw, knocking him out, and he dropped with a pathetic cry that barely echoed over the ambient noise outside. Peter grabbed him before he fell, and lifted him up, using the light from the squad cars to see his face._

 _No._

 _No._

 _It couldn't be. It was, it was the thief from the area! The_ _thief that he could've stopped,_ but _didn't, because he had been_ _so arrogant. He had put himself first, and Uncle Ben had paid the price because he hadn't bothered to act._

 _Peter almost dropped the thief, but he didn't. He rolled him over, and with his web shooters he covered the man's back and torso with thick webbing that he tied to a beam, and then he pushed him out of the window. He didn't care how the cops would react, he just wanted out of there._

 _Leaving the same way he'd come in, Peter swung away as fast as he could, and he went back to the alley he'd left. But he stood amongst the pile of clothes he'd left behind, leaning against a wall as tears cascaded down his face._

 _Peter felt numb. He had caught the criminal who'd murdered his Uncle, but he could have acted earlier, but instead he had been arrogant and cocky, and his Uncle had paid the price._

 _And now he had no idea what to do next._

* * *

"So there you have it," Peter looked grimly at Heather, tears in his eyes as he finished recounting what had happened on that terrible night. "I could've stopped a thief from escaping, instead I didn't. I let him run past me, and he later killed my Uncle in cold blood. I tracked him down and caught him, but found I wouldn't have been in that mess if I'd done what was right the first time. My uncle paid the price for my arrogance."

Heather wanted to reach out and say it wasn't his fault, but she didn't. Peter had been holding this in for a whole year, it was time for him to let it out. Besides, she mused after a few more moments thought, Peter probably wouldn't believe it wasn't his fault even if I tried to persuade him. She stayed silent for a moment to give him the space he so desperately needed and listen to what he was saying, then she asked, "What happened after that, Peter?"

Peter sighed. "Uncle Ben was the main breadwinner for the family," he said, knowing already Heather had probably guessed that since he'd told her Ben had worked long shifts to make ends meet. "When he died we lost a half of our income. The job Aunt May has didn't pay enough, but between the pair of them, we had a nice steady trickle of cash coming in each month, enough for us to keep comfortable and for me to attend school. We weren't rich before, but we were okay. But when he died, he left Aunt May and I to carry the torch. Our financial problems hit us, and I told May I'd drop out of school and get a full time job, but she wouldn't hear anything of it. She told me that Uncle Ben had wanted me to become a scientist, so I backed down, but I was still worried about how I could support her at the same time I was going to school. At the time, I saw one way out, well three ways."

"What were they?" Heather asked curiously, speaking for the first time in a while, wondering if it had anything to do with what was happening now.

"As much as I hated the idea seeing where it had gotten me and my family, I decided to re-enter showbiz like nothing had happened, though this time I would be doing it to support Aunt May and keep in clear in my mind that other people could and would pay the price if I was careless. I was only doing it for the short term," Peter said, but his expression was grim giving the clear message it hadn't gone as he'd hoped. "But they wouldn't have me back. I did say earlier when I described how that agent who told me about that chance to make money wrestling wasn't the only person there, but in this case it was not someone willing to give me a cut."

"Who was it?" Heather asked patiently, hoping Peter wasn't going to turn this into a guessing game.

" Jameson, the editor in chief of the Daily Bugle," Peter said grimly, his hands tightening with barely concealed frustration as he recalled the story he'd read on the day the entertainment business shunned him. "He wrote a criticizing article about how the business was letting a masked man con them. He went into too much detail about the kinds of things a masked man could do, but he wrote enough to make them worried. He said in the article it would only be a matter of time before I committed a robbery, and they would be the ones to blame. Anyway, the entertainment firm read the story..."

"And they couldn't take the chance," Heather nodded in understanding, finishing the sentence Peter had started. Peter nodded, the frustration disappearing into a kind of resignation. At the time he had been furious a perfectly good way of making some money to support his Aunt and himself had been closed off, but now he was plain indifferent though the memory still stung in his mind. "Yeah. I tried to tell them it would never happen, but they challenged me, they asked me to take my mask off so they could see who I was, but when I refused it was a mistake. The next thing I know was I was asked politely to leave. I haven't dealt with them since."

Heather shook her head, trying to hide her despair of how Peter had been treated. "So what did you do?" she asked. "You said you'd had three options, what were they?"

Peter sighed. "When Uncle Ben was dying, he sort of hinted he'd known about what had happened to me; he may not have an idea how it had happened, but he may have known about my powers. Anyway, he said that with great power, comes great responsibility. I had no idea what he meant, because responsibility could mean anything. Once the entertainment business threw me out, I wondered what I should do; I could become a crime fighter, but if I did that I wouldn't get any money from it, and my Aunt May was more important than anything at the time. I mean, yeah, I've loved comic book heroes since I was a kid, but this is real life."

"But you didn't become a crime fighter," Heather pointed out. "You've only recently become Spider-Man again, and you've turned down a different route."

Peter nodded at the question, and he couldn't help but wonder what her reaction would be to his reply. "It was the Fantastic Four that changed my mind, believe it or not. Do you remember the battle they fought a year ago, between those robots?"

Heather frowned, surprised by the sudden mention of the famous group of superheroes, and she was left wondering how they could have stopped Peter from becoming a costumed crime fighter. "I remember the story, but nothing more than that," she said slowly a moment later, casting her mind back a year. She could indeed remember the story, and the number of takes the media had on it, but it wasn't something she usually cared about. The world was full of costumed superheroes, grown men and women wearing playsuits, playing hero, it usually made no difference to her. But what did the Fantastic Four and one of their superpowered battles to do with Peter's decision?

"Well, I was there," Peter admitted, much to Heather's surprise. "I was looking for part time work once school was out, I'd told Aunt May not to worry herself. I was walking around the city, going into shops, posting my CV at the time the battle started. I watched in amazement as the FF fought the robots. They won the battle, hands down, of course, but the battle caused a massive amount of damage to a city block, and understandably a lot of people were injured, some of them critically. That's what I noticed the most, apart from the bystanders screaming to get out of the way. I saw Ben Grimm and the Torch smash and burn buildings, fracture streets, and god knows what else. But the FF didn't seem to care about the level of destruction they caused. When the battle was finished, they seemed to parade up and down the street to show everyone how great they were. But they didn't seem to care about little things like people buried up to their necks in rubble, even those with the strength of the Thing, the elastic arms of Mr Fantastic, or the caring nature of the Invisible Woman. They just spoke to each other, and then left. They didn't look back, and the Daily Bugle did not hesitate to point it out. How they managed to spin the story and keep it going without the FF lawyers coming down on them, I have no idea."

"Oh my god," Heather whispered at the thought of the superheroes not bothering to help people like they were supposed to, she had read the story of the battle and now it had been mentioned again other things came back to her, and she remembered how steamed up the media were after the Daily Bugle slammed the FF. Before the Bugle's article, other papers had printed about the battle, and how great the FF were, but the Bugle was not one of them; instead they had focused on the property damage, the number of people in hospital and so on. They had written the story with the full use of the English language as a means to paint the story a certain way, and it had worked to shift public opinion on the superheroes in general. The best thing was the editorials were not half truths or lies, but the whole truth. There were interviews with the crowd, especially the victims.

Heather remembered the story, but she had been so focused on her own life that she couldn't bring herself to care about the Fantastic Four. Heather had the feeling that the lawyers representing the Fantastic Four had gotten involved, but they must have spoken to the Bugle editing staff and told a few facts about the battle that told them the stories were truthful.

But hearing about it from Peter had her thinking that she knew where Peter was going with all of this.

"I didn't want that for a future career," Peter went on, "oh, my activities wouldn't have been like that of the FF. I would be a mortal, really, but any kind of fight would still be devastating to others, and what if I hurt someone?"

"There would be nothing you could do," Heather whispered, seeing the problem when compared to the FF. Because of their public backgrounds, the Fantastic Four were protected legally, they had money from all the discoveries they had made. But if Peter had tried something like that, the public would've crucified him.

Peter pushed past that, and focused on one thing. "I don't like Jameson," he said, "but I think, in that case, he had a point about superheroes. He called them menaces to society, and he emphasised what he thought about the level of property damage. He didn't see it, I did. The Fantastic Four have powers I don't, and yet they were more focused on fighting robots than protecting the people below from harm. Jameson focused on that as well once he'd gleaned the full story."

"That left option 3, but what was it?" Heather asked, though she had a suspicion.

"I become a thief myself," Peter said grimly, unknowingly confirming her suspicion. "I knew that with my powers, I could become a world class burglar. I could hang from the ceiling, spy on the people below to get the combination to any safe I wanted, and then web everything up and leave once the room was clear, and it would be child's play to hijack a money van and take the cash. But at the time I couldn't go through with it, even if it helped me with my family's financial problems."

"Why not? Why didn't you just do it?"

"Because my Aunt May's heart would break if I were somehow caught," Peter answered, inwardly surprised by Heather's nonchalance over a debate over his conscience; she wasn't passing judgement, he realised, but he couldn't work out why she merely being curious. "I decided, once all but one of my options were exhausted - becoming a thief was more tempting than a hero or entertainer - to hide the costume and webshooters, and wait a while to give myself time to work out what my other options were."

"And by doing that, you concentrated more on finding a part time job, in this case at Luigi's without giving yourself unnecessary stress by deciding what to do?" Heather said.

Peter nodded. "Yeah. Luigi was where I met you, remember, and I gained a friend. Someone who didn't judge me because of my apparent weaknesses."

"Peter, I would never judge you, even after hearing this," Heather said, jumping forwards and running a hand gently down his cheek. "I don't know what to say about your Uncle, but I know this, what happened at the arena may have been part of a crime spree. He may have not counted on your uncle trying to stop him, but you did redeem yourself by catching him."

"I wouldn't have needed to if I'd done as the cop shouted-"

"It's not your fault, how could you have known? You might stick to walls, but you're not omnipotent."

Peter didn't look convinced, so Heather decided to move onwards to get to the last few months. "So, when Luigi fired you, that's when you became Spider-Man again?" she said, though she had her answer.

Nodding, Peter replied with a sigh as he looked away briefly. "It was the last straw," he admitted, "I was so tired and fed up with everything; you and I working ourselves to the bone for nothing but dealing with Luigi and his clientele, you being harassed, your mother's injury, my aunt's illness. Hospital bills, travel costs, bailiffs, home bills, useless friends of my aunt who did nothing to help except visit and say how horrible it was she was ill when they could've asked if they could help. You know, Heather, I have wondered for the past year if I should don the costume, take the webshooters, steal some cash and use it to help my aunt, but I always held back."

"It must've been tempting," Heather whispered, knowing that since she was in the same boat as Peter, and the opportunity for some cash came along without any strings, she would be tempted as well.

"It was. I'd gone close to the wardrobe where the costume was hidden, but I never followed through with the temptation until recently, but before I put it on again the temptation had been growing stronger and stronger. Luigi firing us was all the incentive I needed to become Spider-Man again," Peter shook his head. "It's like fate wanted me to become a thief, like the bastard who killed Uncle Ben-"

Peter wouldn't gone on a rant that may well have woken up the street if Heather wasn't suddenly sitting on his lap, glaring down into his eyes. "You listen to me Peter Parker, you are ten times the thing that murdered Ben, and do you know why?" When the intimidated and surprised Peter shook his head, she went on, "Because you don't carry a gun, he does, he has to threaten people to get what he wants. You just break and enter, and you quietly go on with it. You don't steal for selfish reasons, you give money for your aunt-"

"And for you," Peter interrupted shyly. He'd confessed to enough things tonight, one more was hardly going to kill him.

Heather blinked in surprise at the unexpected interruption, but she was more surprised by what Peter had just said and what it implied, and then she gaped in realisation. "It was you?" she whispered, sliding down Peter's lap, but didn't get off. "You were the one sending that money in those envelopes through my letterbox?" She didn't care if the money was stolen, why should she if it helped her and her mum? Why hadn't she thought of this before? It made so much sense, but she had been too busy listening to Peter's story about how he'd gotten his spider powers, hearing about how Uncle Ben had died and Peter's unintentional role in it, and realising there was more to Peter's sudden decision and Spider-Man's reappearance than appeared to the naked eye that she hadn't paid much thought, like she hadn't for a while, to the mystery of the sudden inflow of cash through her letterbox.

Peter nodded, and Heather gasped. "Peter-" she couldn't get the words out. She had wondered if her father, god help her, had been the one to deliver money, but why would that self centered asshole push money through the letterbox? He hadn't given her or her mum any thought since he'd left, but truthfully neither Heather nor Louise knew who the samaritan was until now. It had been a mystery.

"I just wanted to help," he whispered, and Heather placed a hand gently on his cheek. "Pete, I don't know how to thank you," she gasped. "You helped me in more ways than one. I was able to buy mum more painkillers and keep our home going for another few weeks as we looked for work."

"You're not mad with me?" Peter's lost expression made her smile despite herself.

If the situation and the story wasn't serious, Heather would have laughed at the question. Keeping her warm smile on her face without trying to laugh was an achievement she was barely able to make. "Peter, you've been recriminating against yourself, saying how you're as bad as the bastard who murdered your uncle, and let you push envelopes of money I needed to buy my mum and I a bit more time until I got everything into gear at home, and you ask me a question like that? No, I'm not mad with you. I'm over the moon. Not only do I have a friend I love, but I also have a friend who cares about me-"

Then Heather paled and bit her lip in realisation about what she'd said, and she tried to jump off Peter, but he stopped her. "Wait, you love me?" he asked. Heather looked at him, and nodded shyly but happily. "Yeah, I love you," she looked away for a moment but then she turned back to face him. "I realised it when I saw you from my bedroom window, leaving the house with that gorgeous redhead. I hate to say it, but I was pleased when I heard it didn't work out. Sorry if that makes me sound selfish."

"No, it doesn't, I was always thinking of you before that date, but I didn't realise what it meant until after that fiasco," Peter chuckled without humour. "I did think she was beautiful, but as the date went on I realised how dull she was, how much of a bimbo she was. No, that's too harsh. She was so arrogant, so full of herself, how she shifted the conversation around to fit her own. She didn't even want to be with me, she only wanted to humour her aunt. I learnt there and then that I wished it had been you I was dating at the time. You're nothing like her, Heather, you're beautiful inside and out."

Heather nodded, smiling at the comment about how beautiful she was, and she could tell he meant it, she was good with people's feelings and Peter was genuine, whilst she wasn't liking the bimbo part of Mary Jane's description, but she knew what he meant. She had bumped into Mary Jane Watson more than once; the Watsons weren't her favourite people anymore than they were Peter's, the aunt was a gossipy bitch and the niece was no better. She was so shallow, so into herself, she reminded Heather of dozens of the girls at her school. Mary Jane was always the center of the party, and she could see Peter, who was incredibly private, insecure, and quiet wouldn't enjoy himself in such a setting.

Much like herself.

Then something entered her mind. "Peter, you'd said something about holding back from becoming Spider-Man," she said, "and a burglar, but why was that?"

Peter sighed. "For a year, I've been trying to figure out what to become, but I didn't want to become Spider-Man for no other reason than to make quick cash, not without exhausting all the options. But I didn't want to give up the chance to earn a living by not getting a normal job."

Heather's lips quirked. "I guess that makes sense, you didn't want to become Spider-Man again and just live on what you stole, not without getting a proper job."

"Yeah. But I am Spider-Man again," Peter observed, "so what do you think?"

Heather looked away, hearing the nervousness in his voice. "Do you think I should go to the police, betray you? No. I don't. I love you, Peter. I think I fell in love with you from the moment we met, and I loved how you stopped those drunks from touching me up without Luigi noticing. Do I hate you for becoming Spider-Man just for trying to make ends meet? No, I don't."

Peter went quiet as Heather carried on, amazed and surprised by what she was saying. He hadn't expected her to be so passionate.

"I heard about what you said about the Fantastic Four, and you're right," Heather said, "but you also didn't say how there's always someone going after other costumed heroes. I don't want to live my life in fear that my superhero boyfriend or husband," Peter blinked at the word, a warm feeling inside him that Heather would describe him as that, "might meet some kind of monster, and maybe even die from it. What if someone learnt of your secret identity if you became a hero? You'd be hounded, those who loved you would get hurt."

She looked at him suddenly. "Do I prefer the fact you have to steal? No, but understand it. My grandpa was a gentleman safecracker, Peter, believe it or not. He gave it up for my grandma, and she could have turned him in, but she didn't. She loved and cared about him too much. She told me stories about it, and you know something? Those stories gave me a rather skewered look at life. Most kids dream of becoming the next Iron Man, or Captain America, but take those masks away and they're just people wearing playsuits, acting like overgrown kids. I'm pleased that you're not like them."

Peter was surprised naturally by the admittance that Heather's grandfather was a safecracker, but he was happy that although her grandmother could've told the cops she loved him enough to say nothing. Maybe it ran in the family. It had not occurred to him to think of heroes like Iron Man and greats like Captain America of overgrown kids playing dress up and hero.

"I love you, Pete, but how long do you plan to be Spider-Man?" Heather asked, changing the subject. Peter was pleased, he felt they were going around and round in a loop.

"I haven't given it much thought," he admitted, "I was hoping to stay Spider-Man for a while to ensure my aunt and I, and now you and Louise were happy, but I hope when we get jobs I can pack it all in before I get cocky again and someone pays the price. I'm trying to keep a low profile in case some costumed vigilante or some mutant decides to stop me. That means I don't show off too much of my spider strength, so I don't tear off safe doors or anything like that."

THAT was the crux of the problem. Peter had learnt from his mistake by becoming an entertainer and becoming big headed, but he was human and therefore he had human tendencies to forget lessons he had learnt, and that was what he was afraid of. He was frightened that sooner or later he would go for a heist that was bigger than anything he had done so far. There was a good reason why Spider-Man had not robbed a place like a bank vault or a gold repository, it had nothing to do with the fact he couldn't do any of those things, nor the fact he might not be able to get rid of it. Peter could probably find a way into a bank vault, he was smarter than the average criminal, but there was the fear that a gang out there would learn who he was and who he loved, and use him and his powers to make such a robbery easier for them.

Peter was afraid he would get off on such a heist if it was successful, and that would lead him to rob other places of similar size and security strength. His spider powers gave him an edge other robbers and burglars lacked, but Peter knew one thing, he was not infallible. He was human and he made mistakes like everyone else, he had learnt that terrible lesson already. Peter honestly didn't want Aunt May, Heather or Louise to pay a similar price for one of his mistakes. They were the only people he loved, and he couldn't lose them the way he'd lost Ben.

By keeping to the shadows and by relegating himself to concentrating solely on small and more low risk heists and using tried and true lock picks meant he wouldn't attract too much attention by the superhero community; Peter knew that some crime fighters were attracted to those with superhuman abilities, and that was the last thing he needed. Such a fight would mean his identity would be compromised, Peter hoped to keep himself below the radar of dozens of people. Another thing that worried him was he might gain the attention of a more powerful superhero; Daredevil may have been an urban legend that existed in Hell's kitchen, but he could be real, and then there was the FF. Peter wasn't really bothered by them, the FF were more interested in staying inside the Baxter tower, and dealing with threats from Doctor Doom than dealing with a burglar, even one with spider powers.

As Peter came out of his thoughts he became away that Heather was looking at him seriously, as though guessing what he was thinking, but what she said next surprised him in her brutality. "I think that's a good idea. While I don't have much of a problem with you making a few small heists, I don't like the idea of you supporting us primarily through crime," she said quietly, "but a few heists here and there when we need them, I can stand."

Peter blinked at the use of the word 'us' and the implications it opened in his mind. He liked the idea of being the responsible one in the lives of Aunt May, Louise and Heather, it felt more comfortable to him since Uncle Ben's words about power and responsibility had so many meanings, but what made him happier was the thought of having a chance to be a husband.

Family was incredibly important to Peter, and though school had done too much to bring down his self esteem about making friends and girlfriends, he had held out hope he could make friends with at least one girl, and eventually get married and have a family. Peter tried to wonder how, in a different world and he had not seen the FF fight those robots, and he had decided to become a superhero how it would've worked out for him. Would he tell his girlfriends the truth, or would he lie to them? Hurt them by missing out on dates or things like that which were important to them by fighting criminals?

Now Heather knew the truth, what would she do in the future? The good news was, if they did become a proper item, they could work things out in the future, but hopefully Peter just wanted to give Spider-Man up at the first opportunity.

"What do you hope to do when you've finished college?" Peter asked to get them off the subject of Spider-Man, though they both knew it would come back.

Heather didn't look amused, but she decided to play his game. "I intend to try to get into art school, become an illustrator or something along those lines," she answered.

Peter smiled back at her. "I plan to be a scientist at some point, maybe even work with computers. After all that, do you really think Spider-Man will appear again? Earlier on, I planned to never let this last year repeat itself."

Heather blinked at the implication Spider-Man might continue to steal, but Peter quickly carried on. "Who knows what the future will bring? I may not have wanted Spider-Man to return like this, but in the future we might be better off. Yeah, being a thief's great and all, but I don't want to support us like that forever."

Hesitantly Peter held out his hand, and without any hesitation Heather placed her smaller hand in his. Then, on an impulse, she leaned forward. Peter blinked in surprise as Heather's lips fused onto his, but when he felt her tongue work on his lips, seeking entry, he opened his mouth and let his own tongue inside her own mouth. Peter had always imagined that those stories of kisses which ignited fireworks were an urban myth, told by giggly girls who loved gossip, but not anymore. When Peter and Heather first kissed, it was as though a whole city block had gone up in flames. Peter enjoyed the moment, savoring Heather's cherry like lips, the vanilla and strawberry scent of her hair.

Peter deepened the kiss and pulled Heather gently towards him. He felt a dainty hand run through his hair, and it just made him gently rub her back. There was no forcefulness, there was no biting from one another to claim territory behind the kiss, it was just a soft, tender and loving kiss. Finally a need for air stopped the kiss.

Heather was smiling at him, eyes shining even though her face was beet red, and judging from her smile Peter guessed he was a mirror image right down to the blush.

"That was-" Heather began breathlessly.

"Amazing," Peter grinned as he finished the sentence. Heather smiled at him, and then wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and Peter copied the move and eventually they were hugging one another.

* * *

Please tell me what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

A Different Choice.

May Parker was sitting up in her bed, feeling a lot stronger than she had over the last few months. She was presently reading the newspapers, dominating the headlines were the robberies committed by Spider-Man. The thought of the arachnid criminal made May shudder, she'd always hated spiders and hated the thought of a mutant who could do what they could do, but she tried to focus her attention on other matters. Many of her so called friends had shown up over the last few days when it was announced she was getting better, showering her with attention, but truthfully May didn't know what to think about them at the moment. She had been aware, as she had told Peter, of people's presence, and she had indeed been aware of the presence of her friends, but she hadn't known their visits were so few and far between. Anna Watson and that dreadful and obnoxious niece of hers had visited a couple of times, but Mary Jane had always left after a few minutes, always politely excusing herself to get a few moments to herself. Mary Jane may have thought she was being polite, but May was not stupid. She may be an old, frail, and sickly woman, but Mary Jane was forgetting she had been a teenage girl herself, and though there was a wide gulf between Mary Jane's present teenage generation than what May had seen and lived through at that age, she knew enough to guess that Mary Jane didn't like being so close to a sick woman. May wondered if she would retain that same attitude when she was May's age, but she didn't dwell on it too much.

The girl's attitude made May do her best to ignore her, though it was hard and with Anna's presence nearby it was easy to focus on something else. May frowned as she remembered her friend's own attitude which left much to be desired. Anna had done her best to balance her concern for May, though it did make her slightly ill since Anna spent more time moaning about Peter's so called lack of attention to his sick aunt. When May and Anna had set up that date for Mary Jane and Peter, May had done it for the best of intentions, but now she was wiser about her friend, especially that disgusting display where Anna placed her hand on Peter's shoulder.

Whilst she was surprised and a more than a bit worried about Peter threatening Anna, May could understand her nephew's anger towards the woman beyond putting a hand on his shoulder. Peter had never liked Anna, and the feeling was mutual. May was not blind to how overworked her nephew was, but Anna didn't have to hound him. May knew that, even if Ben had lived, Peter would have eventually had to get a job and earn money sooner or later. She and Ben had been too old, and they couldn't support Peter forever, that had been the reality, but she hadn't expected Peter to accept it on Ben's death though she knew Peter had already guessed it for himself.

After checking the time, May relaxed. She had a simple way of getting through hospital, all she had to do was look the clock, note the time and date, and tick off the minutes and hours to the moment the doctors could say she could return home. Home. The word went through her mind, and though she had tried on many occasions to avoid thinking about the things Peter had needed to pawn for cash for her medical treatment, she couldn't. She hated the idea of Peter having to part with some of the things she and Ben had gifted him with over the years, just as much as she hated the thought some of the things that reminded her of Ben were also sitting on some shelf in a pawn shop, but she understood where her nephew had come from with only the wages from that awful restaurant supporting him and her.

May looked up as the door to her room opened, and she smiled at the sight of Peter as he walked into the room, closely followed by Heather. She was a bit surprised to see the girl, but it was a pleasant surprise. Peter kissed her on the cheek gently. "How are you?" he asked her while Heather stayed back to give the two Parkers time to themselves.

"Much better, I can't wait to get home." To prove she was much better May got out of bed, and started moving around the room. Heather smiled as she took in May's improved mobility.

Peter had told her that May had begun walking again. True, it had been hard since her legs had not been used for a number of weeks, so she had needed to learn how to walk all over again. She had told Peter it was the same with her mother. It made Heather smile that both May and Louise were recovering so quickly.

May suddenly turned her smiling face towards her. "Hello, Heather dear," she said warmly at the teenager with her nephew. "How's Louise?"

"Much better, thank you," Heather smiled back, then she surprised May when she walked over to stand next to Peter. May's eyes widened with surprise as she noted their closeness. "Are you two-?" she began, but couldn't finish the sentence.

Peter and Heather smiled shyly, and they nodded. May thought she was going to collapse with happiness that her nephew had finally gotten a girlfriend, in fact she looked like she was teetering on the edge, or at least she would have been if Peter and Heather hadn't both seen it. The old lady was surprised by how swiftly the two teenagers moved to steady her.

"I'm okay," she protested to them as they steadied her, looking between them. "When did you two start dating?"

Peter and Heather looked at one another. They hadn't exactly started dating, but they had spent most of their time snogging, but they assumed it was not a good idea to say that to May.

"We've only just started a few days ago," Heather smiled, wrapping an arm around Peter. May smiled, she was even happier when she realized the hug was loving instead of possessive. Her grin widened when Peter wrapped one of his own arms around Heather's slender waist.

May was just about to ask the new couple another question, but was interrupted when the door opened. May and the others turned, expecting it to be a doctor or a nurse. It wasn't, it was Anna Watson, and fortunately she was alone, which made Peter and Heather more comfortable, though for different reasons. Peter had not forgiven Mary Jane for that mess of a date, and though she felt more confident in herself now she was Peter's girlfriend Heather was more self conscious next to a girl like Mary Jane. Anna looked very surprised to see Peter and Heather together, here at the hospital, but that was simply because she hadn't visited May often enough to see the girl. Heather had actually visited the hospital since she'd met Peter, she hadn't been coerced into coming because of their friendship, but because she had genuinely wanted to see the woman who meant so much to the man she loved. May and Heather had quickly become friends whenever the old lady had woken up, and it warmed her old heart to see her nephew, who had always been so shy and lonely as a kid now had a friend. Louise herself had also visited, but that was to visit for checkups into her own health. The two women had also struck up a friendship, both pleased their kids had finally gotten some friends who were much the same. But it upset May so much that she had more in common with Louise than she did with Anna, and here she was now and she had no idea how to feel.

Anna looked between the trio, frowning slightly when she saw how close the two teenagers were to each other, before she turned to May. Her smile was so fake even May wasn't fooled. "You look so much better, May," Anna gushed at her friend, deciding to ignore Peter and Heather, "when do they suppose you'll leave?"

"Any day now," May replied diplomatically, saying nothing about Anna's obvious ignoring of Heather and Peter, but she didn't hesitate to drop a mention of her nephew into the mix. "I can't wait to get back home with Peter."

"Hmm," Anna replied, her bright expression fading at once at the mention of the teenager. Her clear dislike of Peter was so blatant Heather wondered how she hoped to hide it from May. She couldn't as May frowned slightly. Not realising that she was now in trouble, Anna finally turned to Heather, knowing who she was of course.

"And why are you here, dear?" she asked, though her expression was not welcoming, and bristling at being called by this dear woman who was known as a gossip and a shit stirrer in their neighborhood, Heather glared back at her for being patronized and wondered why it even had anything to do with her if she visited someone in hospital. Heather might have been a kind, sweet, gentle girl, but she was not a pushover. She had a bad temper when she was provoked. She also didn't hold back her temper either, who did Anna Watson think she was? "I'm visiting my boyfriend's aunt with my boyfriend in the hospital, is that alright for you?"

Anna was so shocked by the retort she glanced between her friend and the two teenagers to see if this was some sort of joke, but it was soon clear to her that it wasn't. "Boyfriend? Him?" she pointed at the clearly annoyed Peter. Anna was forgetting herself, she also made a tactical error in forgetting who was in the room with her.

"Dear, he's not reliable," she tried to say to Heather, who merely folded her arms, "he goes off and leaves people when they need him the most-" Anna shut up when she was interrupted by the very person she had been bad mouthing.

"I go off and leave people when they need me the most?" Peter repeated, his arms folded as he stood next to his girlfriend, gazing at Anna with undisguised dislike. "How do I do that? Was I doing that when our home was being threatened with repossession? Just because you rarely saw me at this hospital when Aunt May was taken sick doesn't mean I didn't go out of my mind with worry, I've already lost one parent figure in the last year, I couldn't lose one now."

The arm Heather wrapped around his shoulder wasn't just to comfort Peter but to remind him not to say anything that might get him into trouble. May might not like her nephew being Spider-Man if it was revealed, but she would stand by him. Anna wouldn't, and she wouldn't hesitate to gloat if the cops tried to arrest Peter.

But Spider-Man was the last thing on Peter's mind as he glared at the old bitch in the room. He was focused on what she'd said about him leaving those who needed him the most, and though he agreed with her to a point he wasn't going to give her a victory. Not if it gave him a chance to let the bitch know what he really thought about her. "Check with the nurses, Anna," he spat in her face, making her glare at the spittle he'd sent her, but he didn't care. "I've been with Aunt May every chance I can get, whenever I wasn't studying at college, or working, and before things picked up I was tempted to drop out of college. I didn't, do you know why?" he asked.

Anna, although surprised by the diatribe and being spat on, glared back. "Because you're lazy-"

"No, because I told him I didn't want him to lose the chance to have an education," May's sharp voice rang throughout the room, and Anna blanched as she realised she had forgotten May, but before she had a chance to protest, give an excuse May began her own diatribe. The elderly, frail woman had had enough of her nephew being bullied by people she'd once seen as friends when all he was trying to do was keep her going. She had had enough!

"I knew Peter was working hard, Anna," she said, "and I couldn't stop him. He wanted to help support us after Ben's death. How else was he supposed to pay for my hospital treatment, with money from the trees out front?"

Peter was loving this, and he prayed this would be the last day he saw his aunt and Anna Watson in the same room with each other ever again. Heather was also watching with rapt attention, hoping this would bring Anna down a few pegs.

But Aunt May wasn't even started on Anna yet. "You call my nephew lazy, and yet you're the one who had money and refused to give any kind of thought to helping when you must have known we were struggling. Did she know, Peter?" she asked over Anna's shoulder.

Peter nodded. "She did, but she didn't care," he confirmed, ignoring Anna's desperate hand waves to keep it quiet, "I spoke to one or two doctors, and she was present during the meetings, either because she was leaving or because she was arriving, that the costs of the medication you were receiving was going to be raised again. She was there, and yet she seemed to ignore it. I kept a close eye in case some mysterious donation slipped in, but there was none. Plus," he glared at Anna, "you also went out of your way to boast about new purses, handbags, dresses or shoes that were on offer, and you said it all in an annoying sing-song voice."

Anna glared back. "You snotty little bastard," she whispered, but Peter was looking back at her with a bored expression. Ironically, it was almost identical to the one Anna and Mary Jane reserved exclusively for him whenever they saw him.

May shot to her feet, wobbled for a bit, somehow maintaining her glare focused on Anna. "That's it, get out!" she snapped, she desperately wanted to shout, but she was still recovering her strength.

Anna looked like she wanted to protest, but she sighed. As she paused on the threshold, she looked back at May imploringly. "You'll see, sooner or later your precious nephew will let you down, and then you'll see things my way."

Peter watched her go, suddenly concerned that Anna may have just been portentous there. It was his worst nightmare at the moment Spider-Man would somehow be captured by the police and his aunt would suffer a broken heart. Fortunately, Heather wasn't willing to let her new boyfriend suffer, and she instantly hugged him from the side, but it gave Anna a new target.

"As for you, you could do better."

Heather snapped at Anna at that point, furious. "Don't tell me how to live my life, you bitch," she hissed, sounding like an angry cat. She was shaking with anger. How dare Anna tell her who she could be with!

Peter had had enough, and before Anna could move he had gripped her by the wrists and shoved her out with the backing of some of his spider strength, and he closed the door.

He smiled apologetically at May. "What do you want to do when you leave the hospital?" he asked her to change the subject. It worked, and soon both teens were making suggestions about what they could do once May had left the hospital.

The end, til part 2.

Enjoy!


End file.
